March of Dimes partners with tech startup Altruize to connect students with at home volunteer opportunity

Many students had internships and volunteer opportunities in place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal for these students was to help their communities while also being able to advance their skill-set, checkout career options, and increase their chances for college admission and scholarship funds. The vast majority of these opportunities have been canceled or severely delayed which has led to increased anxiety among students. One tech startup is on a mission to change that. Altruize is an app that enables volunteers to control and verify their volunteer data without paperwork.

Today, Altruize announced it has partnered with the March of Dimes to relieve some of the anxiety and burden affecting students who need verified volunteer time. Founded by Nicole Sdao, Altruize is the first platform to digitally, track and verify volunteer activities accurately.

Commenting on the partnership, March of Dimes Director of Volunteer Engagement and Mobilization Patricia Gentry, said: “When Nicole (Altruize’s Founder) reached out to let me know that students are facing struggles fulfilling their service hours and are having trouble finding opportunities, we recognized that the March of Dimes could meet this need by asking students to help make cloth mask coverings. We could meet the students’ needs and the students could help us meet a community need through this initiative. The use of the Altruize app will help us track and verify those efforts, so the students can prove their impact.”

March of Dimes is excited to lead the way to verify the efforts made by students who make cloth mask coverings and send the masks to their holding facility. “This is a great opportunity for students who are still in need of volunteer and community service hours whether for graduation requirements or for scholarship applications and college admissions,” says, Nicole Sdao, Founder/CEO of Altruize. “To have an organization like the March of Dimes verify the students’ volunteer time is very impressive to college admission officials and scholarship boards. The hours will be logged and verified, all through the Altruize App so no matter where you live you can have a huge impact on the health and safety of those affected by COVID-19.”

March of Dimes is a 501-C3 not-for-profit organization. With prematurity as the #1 killer of babies in the United States, it is the March of Dimes’ mission to change that and help more moms have full-term pregnancies and healthy babies. From polio to prematurity, the March of Dimes has focused on researching the problems that threaten our children and finding ways to prevent them.